Part 9 (2/2)

She looked at Millie for a long time. This was impossible. Either take her fifteen-year-old daughter to the house of a p.o.r.nographer or let her take her chances with the drug-dealing loan shark. G.o.d, what a tangled web. Still, she had to make a decision.

'You'll spend four hours sitting in the back of the car.'

'I don't care. I'll take a book. I won't be in the way.'

Sally sighed. 'Go and make a sandwich. Then get dressed and I mean dressed dressed. No short skirts and a proper blouse, no skimpy T-s.h.i.+rts. Something sensible sensible. And you'd better bring some of that English homework too four hours is a lot of time to kill.'

It was another fine day, the sun already high in the sky, last night's rain just a memory, but all the way to Lightpil House Sally worried. She kept thinking about what Steve had said about the girls in Kosovo, some of them not even women yet. And then, conversely, she started worrying that David wouldn't let Millie stay, that they'd have to get straight back in the car and turn round, that she'd lose the extra four hundred and eighty pounds a month she'd factored into her sums.

When they pulled into the parking area Millie opened the window and leaned out, blinking in the sun and gazing up at Lightpil House as if she was driving on to a movie set. David Goldrab must have been waiting because before Sally could park he was coming down the long path to meet them. He was wearing his towelling robe and FitFlops, a gla.s.s of green tea in his hand, and a digital heart monitor on his wrist, as if he'd just come off one of the treadmills in the gym on the first floor. Sally pulled on the handbrake and watched him, wondering what he'd do when he saw Millie. Sure enough, when he caught sight of her in the front seat he frowned. 'Who's that?'

'Millie,' she said, bracing herself for an argument. 'My daughter. She won't get in the way.'

David bent down at the driver's window, hands on his thighs, and gave Millie a long, appraising look. 'You staying with us, are you?'

'She'll be out here in the car. She won't bother us.'

'Like pheasants, do you, Princess?'

Millie glanced at her mother.

'It's all right,' said David. 'It's not a trick question. Got to learn to answer questions with honesty. If a person asks you a trick question the only person it shows up is them. So do you like baby pheasants or not?'

'She's staying in the car.'

'Sally, please. She's not a two-year-old. She needs something to occupy herself. Won't come to any harm better than being cooped up in this ...' He paused and gazed at the little Ka, trying to find words to describe its lowliness. 'Yeah. Anyway better you run around in the suns.h.i.+ne, Princess. Now, answer the question. Do you like pheasants?'

'Yes.'

'Good. Then I'll show you where to go and have a look.'

'Don't go out of the grounds,' Sally said. 'And take your phone.'

Millie rolled her eyes. 'I heard you,' she hissed. 'OK?'

Sally took a few deep breaths. She unbuckled her belt and got out of the car. Millie climbed out of the pa.s.senger seat and flattened her blouse with her palms, looking around, clearly impressed by everything she saw and amazed that her mother could somehow, in whatever context, be part of it.

'See that path down there at the side of the house?' David came round the front of the car and pointed down to the edge of the property. 'You follow that and you'll find a gate. There's a padlock. Code's 1983. My date of birth.' He gave a laugh. Neither Sally nor Millie joined in. 'Go through and there's a shed. Full of the little b.u.g.g.e.rs. When you're done, come and sit on the terrace. Mum'll make you a lemonade. Won't you, Sally?'

Millie glanced at her mother. Sally hesitated, feeling sick. But she jerked her head to tell Millie to go. To get on with it. 'Phone,' she mouthed at her. 'Keep your phone phone switched switched on on.'

With another uncertain look at David, Millie set off down the path. He folded his arms and watched her go. She was very thin in her jeans, which were big in the leg but tight on the hips, and her hair bounced and gleamed in the sunlight. Sally watched the way he was eyeing her daughter. She slammed the car door, louder than she needed to, and he turned to her with a lazy smile.

'What? Oh, Sally, I'm disappointed. You think I'm checking her out, don't you? What do you take me for?' He looked back at Millie, who was just disappearing behind the flower borders. 'Do you think I'm some kind of pervert? A man of my age? A girl of that age? She's far, far too old for me.'

Sally stiffened and he roared with laughter, nudging her arm. 'I'm joking joking, girl. Joking. It was just a leetle joke. Go on crack a f.u.c.king smile, can't you? Christ.' He sighed. 'Did you have to pay extra for that stick you've got up your a.r.s.e or did it come free with the convent education?'

Sally swallowed. Her mouth was dry. But she didn't let it show. She went to the car boot and began to get out her cleaning equipment.

'I'm only pulling your leg, girl.'

She took out the black attache case she kept her notepads and pencils in and, without waiting, set off up the path, followed by David, who huffed and puffed and muttered darkly about people with no sense of humour. Inside the house was filled with the smell of bread. He must have been cooking, using the three hundred pounds' worth of automatic bread-maker that sat next to the coffee machine in the kitchen. Sally sucked at the air, pulling it down into her lungs, willing it to calm her. The smell of food always made her nerves go away.

'Know what, Sally?' David said, when they got to the office. 'Don't take this the wrong way, but I have the feeling Sally Benedict doesn't hold David Goldrab in very high esteem. Because that's the way the world works, ain't it? Now, you probably grew up in some place with turrets and stables. Me? Well, there were towers and drawbridges in my past too a tower block with a f.u.c.king great iron security door to stop the junkies off the Isle of Dogs breaking in and s.h.i.+tting in the lift. Which never worked anyway, whether it got used as a toilet or not. Seventeenth floor and no hot water, no heating.'

He sat on his swivel chair, unstrapped the heart monitor, plugged it into the back of a white Sony laptop and began downloading his day's workout readings. Then he used his heels to kick himself across the room to a larger desktop computer and switched it on.

'1957 that was when I was really born, not 1983, in case I had you fooled there. Youngest of three boys it was two to a bed in those days, a mattress on the floor, and count yourself lucky if you got one scabby little square inch of peeling wallpaper to stick your posters on. Always getting your d.i.c.k groped had to sleep like this.' He put his hands over his crotch and bent at the waist as if he'd just taken a cricket ball in the groin. 'Oldest brother turned into a drunk at thirteen. Mum never even noticed, she was that taken up with herself and her own b.l.o.o.d.y misery. He'd come home s.h.i.+t-faced and crash on top of us. Can still smell him, the miserable c.u.n.t. One morning I wake up and the bed's wet. He's wet the f.u.c.king bed, and the moment I sit up in bed, see him lying there all covered in puke and blood and his own p.i.s.s but still breathing, still snoring, I know for sure that if it takes every inch of my energy, every drop of my sweat, if I have to eat s.h.i.+t, kill for it, I'm going to get out of there find my own s.p.a.ce. My Lebensraum Lebensraum.'

He opened his hands to indicate the grounds outside the window. From there the hills rolled away. There was hardly anything, just a few telegraph poles in the far distance, to indicate that there were any other human beings on the planet. The gate Millie had gone through was surrounded by trees throwing giant shadows on to the gra.s.s below. She was nowhere to be seen.

'Lebensraum,' he repeated. 'What Hitler wanted. Sometimes, you know, you have to wonder if Hitler didn't have a point. And there's me, Jewish name, and plenty of Jew blood in me, though not as pure as my a.r.s.e of a father would've liked it and I'm thinking Hitler had a point! My ancestors, G.o.d rest your souls, put your fingers in your ears, but Hitler was was a vegetarian. And he a vegetarian. And he did did like animals. And most of all he liked like animals. And most of all he liked s.p.a.ce s.p.a.ce. s.p.a.ce to breathe, s.p.a.ce to live, s.p.a.ce to sleep. s.p.a.ce not to be groped and p.i.s.sed on by your slag slag of a brother. And that's what you're here for, Sally, to run my of a brother. And that's what you're here for, Sally, to run my Lebensraum Lebensraum. And to keep it like that. Peaceful. Lacking in human clutter.'

The heart monitor had finished downloading its data. David spent some time studying it. Then, seeming satisfied, he switched off the computer.

'Course,' he said, with a half-glance up at her, 'if I had my druthers I'd have a woman in my life, little golden-haired thing with big knockers, a good head for figures, and a problem in the nymphomaniac department. But I know women most of you've only got one thing on your mind, and it doesn't begin with S. So, Sally, come and sit here.' He drew another chair up next to him in front of the computer. 'Come here and let me show you what I want you to do.'

Sally sat next to him. He smelt vaguely of sweat and aftershave. She couldn't stop thinking about the women in the Balkans, about whether he'd told them them his life story. his life story.

'Now ...' he waved a hand around the office '... this is Tracy Island the nerve centre of Goldrab Enterprises. We're sitting in the personal section. That, over there, that's the money-making part.'

He was pointing to where a desk sat piled high with files and another computer. There was a filing cabinet next to the desk and, mounted above that, a huge monitor showing the view of the driveway from the security camera in the front. Once she'd been cleaning here and had noticed a pile of paperwork on top of that cabinet. She hadn't looked too closely but she recalled invoices in a foreign language. The name Pritina had jumped out. At the time she'd thought it was the name of a city in Russia. Now, thinking about what Steve had said, she guessed it must be Kosovo.

'Sally, I don't want you going home with the idea I don't trust you, because of course I do. But you won't mind me pointing out that my work is confidential. I prefer to keep it that way. In other words, if I catch you snooping around there I'll shoot you in the f.u.c.king eye.' He gave a fat, pleased smile when he saw her reaction. 'A joke. Another joke joke. Jesus, the sense-of-humour fairy is definitely AWOL this morning, ain't she? Now, on this this computer I keep the database for the house. See? So this is where you work. You enter the invoices here, and the receipts computer I keep the database for the house. See? So this is where you work. You enter the invoices here, and the receipts here here. It's not rocket science. You make the calls, get the estimates, organize the workers. Just try to make it so everyone comes on the same day so I'm not running around every morning thinking, I've got to get my drawers on p.r.o.nto cos the bleeding plumber's on his way.'

'OK,' she said quietly.

'And smile smile, for f.u.c.k's sake. Crack a bleeding smile. It's like looking at a s.h.a.gging slapped a.r.s.e, looking at you-'

He broke off and jerked to his feet, staring at the CCTV monitor on the wall. 'Holy Jesus,' he muttered under his breath. 'The scabby little b.u.msucker.'

On the lane outside was parked a small j.a.panese jeep in a metallic purple, with s.h.i.+ny chrome bull-bars. Sally stared at it. The dealer from Kingsmead? It couldn't be. Here at David Goldrab's? As if he'd followed followed them? The window opened and an arm came out, jabbing at the keypad on the gate. It was him. She recognized the hair and the suntan. She spun round and stared out of the window. Millie had appeared on the lawn. Maybe she'd already seen the pheasants, maybe she wasn't interested anyway, but for some reason she had settled on the gra.s.s, lying on her stomach, her phone in both hands, busily texting or browsing, or updating her Facebook page. Sally got up, dithering, not sure what to do, whether to run through the kitchen and yell, or to get her phone and call her. them? The window opened and an arm came out, jabbing at the keypad on the gate. It was him. She recognized the hair and the suntan. She spun round and stared out of the window. Millie had appeared on the lawn. Maybe she'd already seen the pheasants, maybe she wasn't interested anyway, but for some reason she had settled on the gra.s.s, lying on her stomach, her phone in both hands, busily texting or browsing, or updating her Facebook page. Sally got up, dithering, not sure what to do, whether to run through the kitchen and yell, or to get her phone and call her.

On screen the man was still jabbing in numbers, though evidently he didn't know the code, because the gates stayed resolutely closed. David didn't seem perturbed in the slightest. He was leaning back in his chair, his hands behind his head, a nasty smile on his face. 'Oh, Jake,' he said, to the monitor. 'Jake the Peg. You didn't ought to be coming back here, mate. No. You really didn't ought to be doing that.'

24.

Taking casts of footprints and comparing them to shoes was generally one of the quicker jobs forensics teams did. No waiting around for lengthy lab tests. By eleven o'clock that morning the results from the ca.n.a.l path had come back. The prints Zoe had found last night had been made by Lorne Wood. And when the police looked at the path that led away from the gap in the trees they saw there was only one route she could have taken to get there. From the ca.n.a.l the track led through a small wooded area, then along a path that ran between two horse paddocks, under a railway bridge and out to a bus stop. Nowhere near the shops. Lorne had lied to her mother about where she had been that Sat.u.r.day and, in Zoe's book, if a person could lie about something like that, there was no knowing what else they could lie about the fibs could roll on and on, as far as the horizon.

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